Cruz takes control of GOP in Senate

The young senator from Texas has been on the job for about 100 days, but he has already turned upside down the Senate's ancient seniority system and is dominating his senior Republican colleagues. He's speaking for them on immigration, guns and any other topic that tickles his fancy; Republican leaders are seething at being outshone yet are terrified of challenging him.

Consider his news conference last week to promote the Republican alternative to gun control. With Cruz on the stage in the Senate TV studio: the bill's primary author, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a 32-year Senate veteran and longtime chairman or ranking member of the Finance and Judiciary committees; Lindsey Graham of South Carolina (10 years in the Senate and eight in the House); and Indiana's Dan Coats (12 years in the Senate and eight in the House).

But Cruz took over the lectern and refused to relinquish it. He spoke 2,924 words for the cameras, more than Grassley (904), Graham (1,376) and Coats (360) - combined. Factoring in his dramatic pauses to convey sincerity and deep thought, Cruz's dominance was even more lopsided. The others shifted uncomfortably and looked awkwardly around the room. At one point, Graham requested a chance to speak. "Can I?" he asked Cruz.

Cruz is 42, the same age Joe McCarthy was when he amassed power in the Senate with his allegations of communist infiltration. Tail-gunner Ted debuted in the Senate this year with the insinuation that Chuck Hagel, now the Defense secretary, may have been on the payroll of the North Koreans. Cruz also wrote in Politico that "Hagel's nomination has been publicly celebrated by the Iranian government." He later alleged that Democrats had told the Catholic Church to "change your religious beliefs or we'll use our power in the federal government to shut down your charities and your hospitals."

Now Cruz is turning his incendiary allegations against fellow Republicans. On immigration, he has described as amnesty the compromise that Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and three other Republicans negotiated with Democrats. Cruz said such a plan would make "a chump" of legal immigrants. On guns, he said the background checks Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., negotiated in a bipartisan compromise would lead to a national gun registry - an outcome the doomed proposal explicitly prohibited.

Democrats see a potential bogeyman in Cruz because of his outrageous pronouncements, and reporters love his inflammatory quotes. Republican leaders, however, don't know how to control this monster they created.

GOP lawmakers encouraged the rise of the tea party, which now dominates Republican primaries and threatens the same leaders who nurtured it. Cruz's fellow Texan John Cornyn, the Senate's No. 2 Republican, could face a primary challenge next year and therefore can't afford to cross Cruz, who beat an establishment Republican in the 2012 primary. Likewise, the Senate GOP leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, is up for re-election and has to keep on the good side of tea party favorites such Sen. Rand Paul, also of Kentucky, and Cruz.